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Matt Waters plans to seek the Libertarian Party of Virginia’s nomination for U.S. Senate in 2018 to run against Tim Kaine and an as yet unknown Republican. He is currently collecting signatures to get on the ballot.

Mr. Waters lives in Alexandria, Virginia and has been a member of the Libertarian Party since 2008. He was raised in Hampton, Virginia and graduated from George Mason University. He is married and has five children.

We recently conducted an interview with Mr. Waters and we have included that interview below.

1. Have you run for office before? Why did you decide to run for U.S. Senate and not a lower office?

Waters: No. Never run before. I have been involved in many campaigns, mostly conservative Tea Party Republican, as a fundraiser. I looked at the 8th district here, the Fairfax Co. Alexandria area, and it’s heavily democrat. I would not have had the opportunity to get the message out. I wanted to go big.

2. How long have you been a member of the LP and the LPVA?

Waters: National LP going back to April 2008 (according to my membership card). LPVA, I’m a recent member.

3. Nick Freitas is considered the libertarian-leaning candidate in the Republican primary. He has received the endorsement of Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and a few others. If he wins the primary and runs in the general election, why should a libertarian/Libertarian vote for you over Nick Freitas?

Waters: If Freitas wins, let’s revisit this question. He is an underdog and that is partly why I’m running, to give voters a choice in November. This November here in Virginia is shaping up to be a mirror of what 2020 will look like: a Trump Republican, a milk-toast Democrat, and a Libertarian.

4. Has Trump done anything to advance the libertarian agenda?

Waters: Yes, he has made Republicans look awful, and that may incline disillusioned Republicans to look at Libertarians—but we must be Libertarian—not faux. But we should not bet on Republicans joining us, as if they haven’t gotten the memo yet, I don’t think they ever will. It’s kinda like smoking—if you don’t know it will kill you—well, keep smoking. That’s what Republicans are doing—still smoking.

5. Would you support a constitutional amendment pertaining to term limits or a balanced budget? Why or why not?

Waters: Yes on both. George Will had a great column on this the other day, where he pointed out the two professors at Harvard who have a sound plan towards getting our books to balance. I’d support anything Will is saying—as he may be the most respected Libertarian in the country. On Term Limits, yes, got to take the professionalism out of this. But the only risk here is you have a deep state of professional bureaucrats who never leave Washington. I’d think we need to term limit public service in certain departments at certain levels. We sort of do that with political appointees, but take a deeper dive here. Needs to be looked at.

6. Do you agree with Gary Johnson, the 2012 and 2016 Libertarian Party nominee for President, that our immigration system needs to be streamlined to make it easier for people to come here legally?

Waters: I lean that way. I also lean towards cutting up the welfare state that may be having a disproportional impact on illegal immigration. I would also want to encourage our Latin American friends to focus on rule of law, private property rights, regulation reform, all of the things that make it hard for individuals to succeed. The Acton Institute did a study on how long it takes for an ordinary Hatian to open a business – a person not connected to government—about 260 days. Yet, someone connected to government, who knows someone, took them like a week. These governments are bankrupt, corrupt, and hurt individuals. They need to get their own houses in order.

7. If elected, who would you caucus with? How would you be able to work with other elected officials in Washington, D.C. if you are the sole Libertarian candidate?

Waters: The others would caucus with me! I’d remain independent and attempt to be as non-political as possible—meaning, if R’s do something that makes sense, I’d vote for it; same with D’s. At some point the Libertarian Party will send a representative to Congress, and just like others in smaller parties who went to Congress before us, with the hope that one day the independents in this country will decide to do something different. They did it with Trump.

8. You have already spoken with members of the LPVA State Central Committee (SCC) about your candidacy and they seemed receptive. How do you feel about receiving the nomination to run as the LPVA candidate for U.S. Sentate in 2018?

Waters: I am excited about it, as we need to offer an alternative to the status quo.

9. Do you have petitions up online that volunteers can download to help get you on the ballot? How many signatures do you need?

Waters: I do have a petition on my Facebook page, and on signatures, we need to capture 400 signatures in each of Virginia’s Congressional districts. So 4,400 valid signatures in the 11 districts, and 10,000 overall.

10. What will be the issue(s) that your campaign will focus on?

Waters: If you ask Americans what the number one concern is in this country, they will tell you that their government is. They love the country, they are afraid of the government. If Libertarians cannot capitalize on this, then we may as well pack up and go home. The IRS was weaponized against the Tea Party; the Department of Education is making us dumb and dumber. The FDA is a failure that is responsible for millions dead. The Defense Department is anything but. I think of the snow days here in DC – they tell federal workers – “all non-essential employees” no need to come in to work. If you are non-essential on a snow day, you are non-essential every day. Cut Commerce, Education, HUD, Energy—all a total waste. I ask friends to “Name one thing the federal government gets right?” Blank stares. And all that for $4.5 trillion a year. C’mon, it’s time to wake up and cut spending. My budget would cut spending $1 trillion a year, and would eliminate all federal personal income taxes for all Americans through the Liberty Amendment—eliminating the 16th Amendment and replacing the income tax with NOTHING.

12. How can volunteers contact you if they want to get involved with your campaign?

Waters: Go to MattWaters.com, it points to my facebook page, and the webpage is going live soon.

13. A lot of times we hear that voting for a Libertarian candidate is a “wasted vote” or that it will help the Democrat or Republican win (depending on who you talk to). What would you tell voters who are concerned about your candidacy affecting the election in a way that they perceive as negative?

Waters: I think Democrats and Republican voters are wasting their votes; after all, what has Tim Kaine done in the US Senate? Name one thing. These voters are on their way to becoming non-voters because they know nothing changes.

14. It has been reported that you are pro-life. Can you elaborate on this a little bit? Would you seek to have a “Personhood Amendment” added to the Constitution?

Waters: Yes, 100% pro-life, more so than any of the Republicans running. I have worked for and with multiple pro-life organizations over the last 25 years. I became pro-life in the mid-80’s reading Jesse Jackson and Al Gore’s statements—both were pro-life at one time—and both sold out their principles seeking higher office. I won’t do that. I’m encouraged that the Democrats—the party of Death according to Ramash Ponnuru’s book, are actually entertaining supporting pro-life candidates. So on personhood, on a Life Amendment, etc, yes, I would support nearly anything that protects life. That is at its very heart what it means to be an American—after all, its life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Life is first on the list. The life position also falls under the Libertarian banner of “do no harm”.

Cliff Hyra is an Intellectual Property lawyer with an undergraduate degree in Aerospace Engineering from Virginia Tech and a law degree from George Mason University. He is a lifelong resident of Virginia who is currently living in Mechanicsville with his wife and three children.

His three top priorities as Governor will be:

Economic Growth

Criminal Justice Reform

Choice in the Education and Healthcare Systems

You can read Rick Sincere’s article on Cliff Hyra over at Bearing Drift by clicking here.

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Participating in a “Libertarian Town Hall” last night on MSNBC’s “Hardball” hosted by Chris Matthews, Gov. Gary Johnson and Gov. Bill Weld fielded questions about their platform, their candidacies, and the libertarian philosophy itself. The one hour episode was filled with a mix of laughs, cheers, and at times, strong agreement from the crowd of students who attend The University of New Hampshire where the town hall was being held as part of Matthews’ “college tour.”

During the town hall, Matthews asked Gov. Johnson to name a living world leader that he admired. Johnson paused to think about it before jokingly stating: “I guess I’m having an Aleppo moment,” referring to an earlier appearance on MSNBC where he was thrown a question out of left field concerning the Syrian city of Aleppo, and blanked.

Almost immediately after making the joke, Johnson said “The former President of Mexico.” Gov. Weld chimed in with “Fox?” and Johnson agreed that was the correct name of the man he admired.

The Clinton spin machine, which includes most main stream media outlets seized upon this moment to claim Gov. Johnson couldn’t name any world leaders. Most of the headlines on the internet lead with the misleading headline and some of the articles did not ever state that Johnson did name Vicente Fox as the leader he admired.

I’d like to thank the Clinton campaign (who it is reported is spending six figures to discredit Johnson) for giving Gov. Johnson the free publicity his campaign needs to win the election in November.

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This article was written in 2014 by Peter Fuentes and posted on the Robert Sarvis For Senate web site. It is being re-printed here with permission of the author to remind everyone that Robert Sarvis is in fact a “real libertarian.” Feel free to share this far and wide…

Robert Sarvis, Virginia Libertarian

Last year, during the gubernatorial campaign, the GOP unleashed a barrage of false attacks against Robert Sarvis.

Why did the GOP do it? Because the GOP was, and is, running scared! The rise of a candidate like Robert Sarvis showed just how out-of-touch the GOP is, especially with millennial voters, moderates, libertarians, and independents. (And by nominating “Establishment Ed” Gillespie this year, the GOP is showing it’s out-of-touch with fiscal conservatives, too!)

As Sarvis climbed in the polls, eventually reaching double digits, the GOP panicked. Unable to appeal to voters honestly, the GOP resorted to politics-as-usual, unleashing false accusations about Sarvis.

But every single accusation was FALSE!

So much for the party that likes to talk about “values”… The smears prove how desperate, morally bankrupt, and intellectually dishonest the Virginia GOP has become.

If you know a GOP partisan loyalist, you’ve probably heard some of the below claims.

FALSE – Robert Sarvis was not, and is not, a Democrat plant. That’s an absurd claim.

Sarvis ran for State Senate in 2011 as a (libertarian) Republican against the Democratic Majority Leader Dick Saslaw. Sarvis left the Virginia GOP because he found it to be, in his words, “hypocritical and vacuous on economics and unsound on personal liberty.” But he doesn’t think the Democratic Party is any better.

Indeed, Robert Sarvis, like many other voters, believes the two-party system is broken and has failed to protect liberty or limit government. He rightly points out that both Republicans and Democrats alike are responsible for mass surveillance of citizens, the $17 trillion debt, the failed drug war, the immigration mess, enormously expensive wars of choice, mass incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders, loss of civil liberties, rampant over-regulation of the economy, the financial crisis and Great Recession, and much more.

In 2012, the Libertarian Party of Northern Virginia tried to recruit Sarvis to run for Congress in the 8th district, but Sarvis declined. In early 2013, Sarvis was asked by the Libertarians if he would run for Governor. Seeing the low-quality, illiberal candidates being put forth by the major parties, he agreed, believing that Virginia deserved a better choice. He ran a campaign that inspired many voters in Virginia and many Libertarians around the country.

This year, Robert Sarvis is running for the U.S. Senate to again give voters a better choice.

FALSE – Sarvis was the largest contributor to his own gubernatorial campaign, giving close to double the next-highest contributor. That alone suggests the GOP’s claim is unserious, but let’s drill down further.

The next highest contribution was for ~$11k and came from the Libertarian Booster PAC, a PACfounded by the Executive Director of the Libertarian Party to help Libertarians overcome burdensome ballot access rules favored by Republicans and Democrats to stifle competition.

The Libertarian Booster PAC received contributions from long-time libertarian donors, including a Texas entrepreneur who has a long history of supporting Libertarians and is well-known to the Texas Libertarian Party and national Libertarian Party. He has also contributed to various individual Republican and Democrat candidates, as is common with donors to third parties.

The GOP tries to make a great deal of the fact that the Texas entrepreneur’s wife fundraised for Obama, but if contributions to other parties is a sign of ill-dealing, the GOP should look in the mirror. It took less than ten minutes to find on VPAP a group that gave a $25,000 contribution—more than any donation to the Sarvis campaign—to BOTH Cuccinelli AND various Democratic groups, like the Democrats’ Commonwealth Victory Fund, the McAuliffe campaign, and later McAuliffe’s Inauguration Committee. By the GOP’s donation illogic, it seems clear that Cuccinelli was the Democrat plant! That would make a lot more sense, for what better way to undermine free markets than to tie it to wildly unpopular social policies?

In any case, Wes Benedict, the executive director of the Libertarian Party and founder/director of the Libertarian Booster PAC, has himself refuted the GOP claims about a Democratic cabal. Of Rush Limbaugh’s claims that “the Democrats enlisted a ‘fake Libertarian candidate’ who was ‘bought and paid for by an Obama bundler,'” Benedict said flatly, “That’s an outright lie, and Limbaugh should retract his claim.”

Note just how sad the GOP has become, by its own estimation—it got derailed by a donation totaling $11k?! A donation fromLibertariansto a Libertarian? A donation that was just 5% of the Libertarian candidate’s spending, and less than 0.1% of the GOP’s spending in the election?

And if the GOP wants to talk money, they should start by addressing the cancer of cronyism and corporate welfare in their own party. (Dems, too.) In 2013, the Rs and Ds brought in millions in cronyist corporate donations, and 70% of their donations from out-of-state.Sarvis took the opposite approach, raising money from individuals across the political spectrum, and 68% of his funds came from in-state.

The truth is simple:

Robert Sarvis wouldn’t be sacrificing his own personal resources or family time to be a “plant” for a party he does not support. Anyone who knows him or who has heard him speak knows this. He also wouldn’t be spending so much time and energy exposing Democrat Mark Warner’s voting record in support of the surveillance state or against reforms to better protect privacy, or Warner’s inaction on issues like sentencing reform and demanding Congressional authorization for military action abroad.

Why is Robert Sarvis running as a Libertarian? Because he believes passionately in freedom and good government and recognizes both Republicans and Democrats are undermining both.

Why is the GOP so scared of Robert Sarvis and the Libertarians? If a Libertarian Party candidate wins over 10 percent of the vote in a statewide election, the Libertarian Party of Virginia will gain major party status. Since 1999, almost 50 percent of Virginia House of Delegate races and over 40 percent of Virginia Senate races have been unopposed. That’s why the Libertarian Party of Virginia has repeatedly recruited Robert Sarvis to run. With major-party status, it will be easier to run candidates on a more level playing field, and there will be more Libertarians running in two-way races. Competitive elections are good for Virginia, and the GOP and Democrats don’t want that.

FALSE – The GOP refuses to accept that it nominated a candidate Virginia voters simply didn’t like. Instead, the GOP blames Sarvis for its 2013 loss, despite the fact that the evidence shows this is absurd.

First, note that there was no third-party candidate running for Lt. Gov or Attorney General, and the GOP lost both those races, too!

Second, go back and look at the polls. Throughout the entire race, polls showed Cuccinelli behind substantially, with Sarvis taking fairly equally from both sides. Not only that, a very telling poll showed that, “among voters who support Sarvis, 62% approve of [Bob] McDonnell, while 75% disapprove of Cuccinelli”! Republican-leaning moderates who supported Sarvis were simply NOT going to be voting for Cuccinelli.

But it gets worse for the GOP meme. Election Day exit polls and precinct analysis clearly demonstrate Sarvis didn’t affect the outcome. Even conservative/Republican blogs admit that fact:

Bearing Drift, in “Sarvis Almost Cost McAuliffe the Election”, noted that an Election Eve poll had close to half of Sarvis voters saying McAuliffe was their second choice and that Election Day exit polls showed it was well over half. Bearing Drift actually went so far as to say:

Cuccinelli’s anti-Sarvis strategy badly backfired. If he had been open to including Sarvis (who was polling anywhere from 8 to 13 percent in October) in the debates, as McAuliffe was, Cuccinelli could have provided an opportunity for Sarvis to highlight his progressive positions supporting gay marriage and legalizing marijuana, drawing even more votes from McAuliffe on Election Day.

On net, McAuliffe’s margin of victory would have increased by nearly 1.6 percent without Sarvis in the race.

Slate’s Dave Weigel agreed: “The most Cuccinelli-friendly, reality-based revote, if Sarvis was off the ballot, would have been a 52–48 McAuliffe win.”

So Sarvis actually made it a closer result last year!

What about this year? Well, first note that Warner is consistently beating Gillespie by 15 to 25%. It’s not even close. But not only that, Warner is over 50% in every single head-to-head poll against Gillespie! The only two polls that have Warner under 50% are polls that include Sarvis.

Big-government, cronyist/lobbyist “Establishment Ed” Gillespie is going to lose. And it’s not like there’s much difference between him and Warner anyway. Voting for either major-party candidate is a wasted vote.

Voting for Sarvis is the only way to make your vote count. Getting the Libertarian Party major-party status can change Virginia politics for the better. 50% of House of Delegate seats and 40% of State Senate seats generally go uncontested; you can see Libertarians in two-way races throughout Virginia. Competitive elections are a good thing!

FALSE – This set of claims actually proves how ignorant many GOP loyalists have become. The GOP doesn’t know what liberty or libertarianism IS, which is why they got it so comically wrong about Robert Sarvis.

Before getting to the substantive claims, let’s take a look at some of Robert Sarvis‘s libertarian bona fides:

Sarvis has a Master’s degree in economics from George Mason University, known for its free-market, libertarian bent.

Sarvis spent almost two years as a graduate student fellow at the free-market-oriented Mercatus Center, where he co-authored papers with libertarians Jeff Miron, Todd Zywicki, and others.

Sarvis authored a paper for the free-market-oriented Competitive Enterprise Institute on public pension debt (which threatens state finances and is the fault of both Republicans and Democrats alike).

In 2011, running for State Senate as a (libertarian) Republican, Sarvis gave an interview in which he cited Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek as his favorite economists and lambasted the cronyism of his Democrat opponent. He also stood before hundreds of Fairfax County Republicans and said the Republican Party in Virginia shared blame for cronyism.

In 2012, Sarvis was recruited by officers and members of the Libertarian Party of Virginia to run for Congress in Virginia’s Eighth district. The LPVA had been impressed with how libertarianSarvis‘s 2011 Republican campaign for State Senate was. Sarvis, however, declined to run.

In 2013, Sarvis was again recruited by the LPVA, not to mention the current Executive Director of the (national) Libertarian Party, this time to run for Governor of Virginia.

This year, Sarvis again received the nomination from the Libertarian Party, a party known for its principled stands on the issues.

We could go on, but you can see how absurd the GOP claims are from the get-go. Let’s turn to the substantive claims:

FALSE – The GOP so clearly misunderstands libertarianism—and economics—that they apparently think there is but one economic school of thought that serves as the litmus test for being a libertarian.

But that is obviously wrong. Milton Friedman was not an Austrian but was clearly a libertarian. As Friedman said (paraphrasing) “There are no schools of economics, only good economics and bad economics.”

Sarvis actually responded at length to an emailed question about his comments on Austrian economics. Find a link to the reply here.

Moreover, while GMU’s economics department is definitely libertarian, many of its libertarian professors are not Austrians—e.g., Tyler Cowen, Alex Tabarrok, Russ Roberts (now at the Hoover Institution), and many others.

This claim actually shows how ignorant the GOP is of both libertarianism and economics. Indeed, every single one of Sarvis‘s policy proposals and stances had the support of numerous libertarian economists and legal scholars.

FALSE – Robert Sarvis opposes government-run healthcare and overregulation of healthcare. That includes Obamacare but also includes a century of bad policies from both Republicans and Democrats. Obamacare is merely the latest incarnation of a fundamentally flawed approach to healthcare policy.

Robert Sarvis has actually studied healthcare economics and proposed numerous specific deregulatory reforms at the federal and state level that will increase competition, lower costs, and liberate healthcare providers and professionals. We can have affordable and accessible healthcare in every community throughout the United States.

Of course, Mark Warner voted for ObamaCare, but Ed Gillespie isn’t much better—he was a core advisor in the Bush administration, which expanded the fiscally unsustainable entitlement system to include a new, unfunded prescription drug benefit (at the time, the largest entitlement program created since LBJ). Gillespie also endorsed the individual mandate, and his economic plan tacitly admits he would leave most of ObamaCare in place.

FALSE – Running for governor last year, Robert Sarvis advocated for intelligent transportation solutions supported by libertarian and conservative transportation economists—solutions like congestion pricing and user-pays financing to replace the existing tax burden.

A commentator at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute wrote a lengthy blog post, “Memo to Road Socialists”, showing how ignorant the GOP’s claims about Sarvis were. The post concluded:

Robert Sarvis offered the most libertarian and sensible transportation platform this election (or any election I can recall).

The GOP shamelessly (and ignorantly) attacked the verylibertarian and conservative idea that the users of roads should be the ones paying for them. Sarvis did not endorse any particular model of user-pays, but the GOP claimed that he supported government putting black boxes in your car. How did they make that seem even remotely plausible? They made it up! They falsely claimed that Sarvis endorsed a mileage tax, that such a tax could only be enacted via a GPS device, and that such a device would have to be owned by the state. Voila!

All of it was utter nonsense. To begin with, Sarvis never endorsed a mileage tax. He included it as one among several policy alternatives that fit under the “user-pays” rubric. Even if he had favored a mileage tax, a mileage tax does not require a GPS device. Even if such a device were used, it could be privately operated and managed. But all of that is irrelevant because Sarvis never endorsed a mileage tax and would certainly not support the government putting tracking devices in cars.

Indeed, in this year’s U.S. Senate race, Robert Sarvis is the only candidate arguing against government surveillance and in favor of civil liberties, Constitutional rights, and privacy. And it’s Mark Warner and Ed Gillespie who are supporting government surveillance, police militarization, and other instruments of intrusive government.

As a U.S. Senator, Robert Sarvis would support legislation devolving transportation funding back to the states.

FALSE – Robert Sarvis had the most far-reaching tax-reform plan in the 2013 race and does again in the 2014 race for U.S. Senate. Sarvis is also the only candidate willing to engage in an intellectually honest discussion of tax policy.

GOP shills in the media wrote that Sarvis didn’t support tax cuts and even supported tax increases, despite the fact that Sarvis never said anything that would remotely support such a claim.

In fact, Sarvis proposed eliminating the income tax or vastly reducing it, eliminating local business taxes, replacing gas taxes with road-usage fees, eliminating tax deductions and credits that narrow the tax base, removing other preferential tax treatments for favored corporate interests, and more.

But you didn’t hear that from the GOP. Sarvis‘s sin was to speak the truth about GOP hypocrisy—that spending, not taxation, is what determines the size of government, and that it’s irresponsible to try to cut taxes without cutting spending, which is the GOP’s modus operandi. Sarvis‘s proposals, therefore, emphasized spending reforms that would enable tax cuts.

Sarvis‘s tax reform proposals were far superior and far more specific than anything offered by the major party candidates.

And they are again this year. But that’s not hard at all. Ed Gillespie is a big-spending Republican who shares responsibility for the Bush-era deficits that doubled the debt (from $5.5 trillion to $11 trillion)! And Mark Warner is a big-spending Democrat who voted for every spending increase as a U.S. Senator and wants to increase taxes once again).

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Libertarian Presidential Candidate Austin Petersen has been making a lot of noise lately because Libertarian Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson would not attend an event hosted by FOX Business Anchor John Stossel. The event, which was going to be a televised debate between three of the main contenders seeking the nomination for President within the Libertarian Party (Johnson, John McAfee, and Petersen), was going to be held during the International Students For Liberty conference in Washington D.C. February 26-28, 2016.

Gary Johnson had already made a commitment to attend the Mississippi/Alabama joint state convention on February 27th for their own debate. There was no way that he could attend both debates on the same day (Stossel was only offering his debate on the 27th and Petersen has not been invited to the ISFLC on any day other than the 27th). Being a man of his word, Gary refused to back out of his previous commitment. Instead, Gary will speak at the International Students For Liberty Conference on February 28th as their keynote speaker.

ROFL…the latest from Austin “I Just Can’t Stop Myself From Lying, Even After Being Busted in Biloxi” Petersen,

“After an invitation from Fox Business host John Stossel to appear on the network during this year’s Students for Liberty conference, Gary Johnson refused to accept the invitation to debate alongside fellow candidate John McAfee and myself.”

Incorrect babycakes, Gary refused to bail out of a debate alongside yourself and Mr. McAfee that was already scheduled in Biloxi, Ms. He is more than willing to debate you in this previously scheduled event.

“Johnson told our campaigns that his refusal was due to a prior engagement.”HOLY SHIT!!! An accurate sentence…..Painful bro?

“However, when both of our campaigns offered to work together with Johnson in order to make both events possible for all campaigns, he refused to play ball with us and with McAfee.”

Sooooo……what’s stopping you and McAfee from “working together” and making both events possible for YOUR campaigns? Why does Gary need to attend?Have you ever heard of the psychological affliction known as Co-Dependency?Are you co-dependent Austin?Does widdle Austin need someone to hold his widdle hand?

“We had a chance to bring national attention to the ideas of liberty, the Libertarian Party and it’s candidates, and Gary ruined that opportunity for all of us.”Awwwwwww, poor widdle baby!!! Big bad Gary wouldn’t break his commitment with MS/AL and now poor widdle Austin can’t play in Stossel’s sand box!! What are we gonna do with poor widdle Austin!!!!

Again NOTHING is stopping you from “bringing national attention to the ideas of liberty” on Stossel….GO FOR IT BIG FELLA!!! Here’s your chance at Libertarian STARDOM!!! Take McAfee and go to Stossel’s show!!! DO IT!!!(But something tells me you’d prefer a spanking, right Austin? Would that salve your hurt?)

“Gary, do you even liberty, bro?”Austin, do you even think, sis?

In the end, both John McAfee and Austin Petersen agreed to skip the Stossel event and attend the Debate in Biloxi, Mississippi. It looks like Petersen’s plan has backfired.

It would be great if the Petersen campaign would stick to the facts. It would be great if the Petersen campaign would stop attacking other candidates and concentrate on why Austin Petersen would make a good Libertarian candidate for President. Both of those things are just impossible to do.

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U.S. Congressional candidate Andy Craig of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has released his first campaign ad in the 2016 race which will pit him against incumbent Democrat Gwen Moore.

Craig, who recently celebrated his 25th birthday and is now constitutionally eligible to run for Congress, is chair of the Milwaukee Libertarian Party, Secretary of the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin, and a co-host of the popular internet radio program “The Old Dominion Libertarian Radio Network.” He ran for Wisconsin Secretary Of State in 2014 receiving about 60,000 votes.

The campaign ad, which is titled: “Stop Over Criminalization,” can be seen below.

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From the very beginning (2010), when Rand Paul announced he was going to run for the U.S. Senate, many within the liberty movement thought that the Kentucky ophthalmologist turned politician would be just like his father. I wasn’t as convinced because he was running under the TEA Party label and was branding himself as a conservative Republican. Many said (and still claim to this day) that he was just trying to avoid what they considered the missteps of his father, by stealthily maneuvering himself within the Republican party as a libertarian without having to say he was a libertarian. In other words: “Rand Paul’s being dishonest about who he is and what he stands for because it’s the only way he can win.” This seems to be a recurring theme among Rand Paul supporters (now known as “Randroids”). They claim that Rand Paul isn’t telling the truth when he says things that are anti-liberty, but that it’s the only way he can work his magic within the Republican Party. Rand Paul made it clear from the outset that he was no libertarian. But don’t worry, he’s just being dishonest. The ends justify the means, according to Randroids. But only if it’s Rand Paul. If anyone else in the political world is dishonest, they feel immediately compelled to make a meal out of it.

One thing that has always perplexed me is the continuous excuses that Randroids make for their beloved candidate. But the “He’s only lying to get elected” excuse, really takes the cake. They tell you that his plan is to lie his way into the position of GOP Presidential Nominee by pretending to be in line with the Establishment Republicans on most issues. If indeed this was Rand’s grand plan, they have just let the cat out of the bag by broadcasting Rand’s secret all over social media. Lindsey Graham may never have sent an e-mail in his entire life, but his staffers have surely told him about the chatter they read on Facebook.

Rand Paul has flip-flopped (very clearly, I might add) on a number of key issues, with his supporters and even his own campaign staff refusing to admit that he has done so. Rand even got “testy” with Savannah Guthrie over at NBC when she brought the issue up in a live interview being watched by millions. You can read about his flip-flops here, here, here, and here. It’s one thing to change your position on one or two issues once you’ve received new information. But flip flopping on nearly every policy plank of his platform really underscores the fact that Rand stands wherever the people in the room with him want him to stand. As the old saying goes: “Any port in a storm.”

Rand Is Not A Libertarian

Some of the greatest minds within the liberty movement have also condemned Rand Paul for his anti-liberty stances. Lew Rockwell, Justin Raimondo, and Gary Johnson, are just a few who have pointed out the fallacy of being a libertarian and supporting Rand Paul. The graphic to the right illustrates this and more.

Rand also attempted to have his Rudy Giuliani moment (which instantly fell flat) at the first GOP Presidential Debate of 2015, when he went toe to belly with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Rand may have been right in his argument, but it did little to boost his poll numbers because he’s wrong on so many other things. His comments to Christie about “Giving President Obama a hug,” made the social media rounds for about an hour after the debate, and then disappeared into the night.

I never fell for the “He’s just lying to get elected” BS, because even if it were true, I wouldn’t be supporting a candidate who was blatantly dishonest. Regardless of the reasons behind it. It’s why I also wouldn’t vote for him if I lived in Kentucky, where he’s up for reelection as a Senator. A race that isn’t as clear now as it was a year ago.

The guy who truly could have been known as a “different kind of Republican” (whatever that is), won’t even be an also ran. Which makes that possible gig at FOX News as a “libertarian” commentator a no-go from the git-go.